June 9/09 10:20 am - Tour de Beauce UPDATES

Posted by Editoress on 06/9/09

Lac-Etchemin to Lac-Etchemin, 165 km

The start was delayed by a few minutes, but racing was underway at 9:37 am. 96 riders on the startline, with a couple DNF's and some changes to the startlist. Mark Batty was a last minute addition to the Planet Energy team and is replacing an injured Andrew Randell (who crashed during Sunday's race in Philly). Batty hopped on the train after receiving the call from DS Steve Bauer and arrived last night.

It is a gray day, with rain in the forecast

10:20 am: 30 km in and 15 are away with a gap of 20 sec on the peloton. The wind and oncoming rain may hamper (or help) any individual exploits today. MacGregor, Roth, Lacombe, St-John, Candelario, Veilleaux, Kohler, Stewart, Greenwood, Day, Brooks, Munoz, Kobarzenko are some in the break

10:30 am: Break is caught at the 38 km mark, Peloton is 'suffering" through a lot of flats.

10:40 am: 49 km and another attempt by a group of 8 is up the road. Ryan Roth (Planet Energy) in there

10:52 am: 53km in, gap 35 seconds to peloton. Very windy and this is causing some difficulty on the road.

11:05 am: 59 km in - Garmin missed the break and are now expending energy at the front of the peloton, chasing

11:25 am: Break now has 1:35 on the peloton

11:30 am: Gap now over 2 min

12:20 pm: 115 km now completed, the break has 3 min on the peloton. 50 km to go

At the 2nd KOM, the pelton exploded and broke into groups. A small group of chasers brought the gap down to 1:30 with a 2nd chase group at 2 min.

At 120 km, most of the peloton has regrouped

12:29 pm: Now at 129 km in, gap is 1:43 from the peloton

12:45pm: The chase group is 1:37 behind the break. In the chase group are Phil Zajicek (Fly V) , Neil Shirley (KBS) , Sergio Luis Henao (Café de Colombia) and Moises Aldape (TT1). The peloton is at another 1:55

1pm: 140km in (25 to go) gap to chase is holding at 1:35, but they appear to be struggling. Peloton at 2:15

1:06 pm: 20 km to go

1:15pm: Break heading to the finish with 15 km to go.

1:19 pm: 10 km to go, gap to 3 chasers is 1:50 and the peloton is at 3 min